Thursday, September 27, 2007

Eleven-year-old Mageshwari, a seventh standard student of a private school in Annaiah Reddy Layout of Puttenahalli, has not been able to wear her uniform for the last three days. You ask her and she innocently says that there is no water in her house to wash the uniform.Similar is the case with other students. But thankfully their school principal has not objected because he too has the same problem.'I cannot be strict now. When there is no water to drink, where will they have water to wash,' P.V. Ravindranath, Principal of Image English School, said.The deluge clogged sanitary drains and damaged the borewell water pipelines in the area. Since the rains, residents are left without any water.'The water supply (which was already irregular in the past) has stopped since Sunday. We are either buying tanker water from other areas or using the smelly contaminated water from the private borewells in the neighbourhood. We are forced to drink this water,' said Nagaratna S., a resident.'Our toilets are blocked. The stench is unbearable. There is slush all around us. We cannot afford to buy packaged drinking water cans and are forced to manage with whatever we get,' said P. Amaiahyamma, a resident.